1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image forming device such as an electrophotographic type copier, printer, a facsimile machine or machine combining these functions and in particular relates to a mounting member for mounting toner containers such as toner bottles that accommodate toner constituting developer on an image forming device.
2. Description of the Related Art
As disclosed for example in Laid-open Japanese Patent Application No. 2002-139905, in one recent type of image forming device, toner supply action from a toner container such as a toner bottle wherein the toner that supplies a developing device is accommodated is performed by discharging toner from within the bottle to the outside from a toner supply port by rotating the bottle itself. Such a toner container is formed in a cylindrical shape extending in the direction of the axis of rotation thereof, and is formed in its outer surface with helical projections projecting towards the interior of the bottle; toner in the container is fed to the toner supply port by rotation of the bottle.
However, since the mounting member for mounting the toner container on such an image forming device is constituted so as to mount/release the toner container with respect to the mounting member from the direction of the axis of rotation thereof, when the toner container is to be mounted or released, a working space of about the entire length of the toner container in the direction of the rotary axis is required. Consequently, in an image forming device comprising a mounting member in this system, in arranging the mounting/releasing side of the toner container adjacent to a wall or pillar or the like, the direction of installation and/or the location of installation thereof is restricted by the fact that this mounting member may interfere with mounting/release of the toner container. Since the toner container is mounted/released from the direction of the axis of rotation, it is difficult to see the mounting section because of the toner container and if for example the hand of the operator shakes when effecting mounting/release operation, positional location in the mounting position is difficult. This therefore adversely affects ease of mounting and for example some mechanism for holding/fixing the toner container in the mounted position becomes necessary, leading to the problem of increased costs.
Furthermore, in recent years, in order to perform management of the toner container, it has become the practice to store information peculiar to the toner container, such as the frequency of use of the toner container or management data of the limit of use of the toner container in a memory chip mounted on the toner container. In order to perform reading/writing of information to this memory chip when the toner container is mounted in the main unit of the image forming device, it is necessary to electrically connect the memory chip with the main unit simultaneously with mounting of the toner container. However, if the connector terminal that is used to effect electrical connection between the toner container and the main unit is deformed by some external force from outside, a poor connection may result.
For example, in Laid-open Japanese Patent Application No. 2002-169365, it is stated that the device is so constructed that, simultaneously with setting of the toner container in position on the main unit of the image forming device, electrical connection is effected between these. However, no means for preventing deformation or damage or destruction (for example deformation of the connector terminal) of this electrical connection caused by unwanted external force is disclosed.
Also, in Laid-open Japanese Patent Application No. 2004-139031, it is stated that, when the toner bottle is set in position in the printer main unit, the relay connector that is provided on the toner bottle determines the amount of toner that is present in the toner bottle main unit by reading information as to the amount of toner that is input to an ID chip mounted on the printer main unit, and thereby determines the timing of the operation of introduction of toner to the developer device, in accordance with the information regarding the amount of toner that is acquired by this reading process. However, no means for preventing deformation or damage or destruction of the electrical connection of this intermediate connector and the ID chip is disclosed.